Award-Winning Author * Unflinching * Compassionate * Genuinely Funny

Monthly Archives: September 2013

I guess you haven’t lived in cyberspace until your website has been hacked.

I’ve lived now.

Last week, I was guest speaker for the Fredericksburg Parkinson’s Support Group. We had a great time, sharing together how humor can help you cope with difficult situations. At the end of my talk, I invited attendees to come to this site for more information about me and about Eldercare Is Making Me Fat.

Afterward, I was signing books, and enjoying that giddy feeling you get (I? get) when a talk has gone well and I feel as though I’ve connected. People were so nice and eager to tell their stories.

That’s what I expected when one lovely woman came up to me and said quietly, “I looked you up on Google last night because I wanted to learn a little more about you.”

“Oh, thank you,” I replied, thinking I knew what was coming next.

“I think you should know you have been hacked,” she said sweetly. “And there are some awful words on your site.”

That sent me in a panicked rush for my smartphone.

“Just Google your full name,” she said helpfully.

I did. And sure enough, the first result was for my home page, with the ominous message This website may have been hacked.

Right under that, instead of my carefully crafted mini-bio, sat a string of words that had pretty much nothing to do with me.

Prominent among them was a pharmacopoeia of solutions for the dreaded ED.

There was the one that starts with a v, and the one with a c, even the one with an l. (I’m not going to type them out for Heaven’s sake, in case the whole thing gets flagged again.)

There was also something about Jamaica (with a small j) Negril (small n) and s*x.

I don’t need to tell you what I’ve been doing this weekend. And it is not holding hands with Herman, sitting side-by-side in matching claw foot bathtubs. (One day soon I’ll write about just how demented that image is.)

On Thursday, I’ll be the guest speaker for the second annual Caregiver Appreciation Luncheon, sponsored by the Fredericksburg area Partners in Aging.

The PiA used to honor local caregivers every year by inviting them to a seminar on some sort of useful topic like dealing with difficult behaviors or dementia.

Then a couple of years ago, according to luncheon committee member Patricia A. Holland, the organization decided that caregivers had enough stress without sitting through a workshop on the stuff many were dealing with firsthand every day. That’s when the idea was born for an entertaining, invitation-only, relaxing outing instead.

I’ll be talking about how to find the humor in caregiving. And about how figuring out what’s funny in a caregiving situation can help to relieve some of the tension that often smolders when you are a child or spouse responsible for an elderly loved one. Continue reading →